First Outdoor Run of 2010

Last year I tried to keep track of how much I ran, and it adds up to about 307 miles. If I actually run 25 miles a week, that would make 1300 miles for the year. This makes me feel like 25 miles a week might be kind of hard. But last year I wasn’t training for a marathon, so we’ll see. I also signed up for a couple of other runs to help keep me on track. I really like races, and somehow spending money on registration fees always motivates me to get in better shape. And I want to beat everybody. If anyone wants to do the Shamrock Run (I’m doing the 15k) or the Mt. Hood Scramble, let me know.

I finally went running outside with Pascal today because it wasn’t raining, but it was super windy and the string from my jacket kept hitting me in the face. Otherwise it was really nice and clear, and I could see Mt. Hood really well from Terwilliger, which I always like. Whenever I run in the cold my nose runs really bad the whole time though, and every time I bend over to tie my shoe or even just look down, snot drips out of my nose and it gets messy. This whole situation is not ideal but I haven’t figured out a way to surmount it – other than staying inside on cold days. Which right now, is every day.

I ran down to Duniway track, because I wanted to try this workout that Yasso talks about in his crappy book. He calls them the “Yasso 800s,” and apparently they’re super popular and everyone thinks he’s a Russian scientist for having invented them. The workout is intended to be part of marathon training, and is just running a series of 800s with a 400 meter jog between each one. You’re supposed to start with about 4-5, and eventually work up to 10. Then you can roughly predict your marathon time by looking at your average 800 time and converting minutes:seconds to hours:minutes. For example, if your 800s come out to around 3 minutes and 30 seconds, then you can expect your marathon time to be about 3 hours and 30 minutes. I ran my 800s today in 3:20 and then 3:18, which would translate to a 3 hour and 19 minute marathon, but Yasso says you have to do 10 of the 800s to get an accurate marathon prediction. This makes sense, because I’m pretty sure I couldn’t run a marathon in 3:19 right now. It’s fun to pretend I could though, because then I would qualify for Boston.

I was kind of bummed because I didn’t see anyone do anything stupid/entertaining when I was on my run – I was probably looking a lot weirder to other people when I was trying to clean up all my snot everywhere and keep Pascal under control. Luckily those things also occupied my mind for most of the run, so I didn’t pay attention to being tired. I also got to wear my new running tights for the first time and they have a pocket in the back where I put my car key so I didn’t have to worry about it falling off my shoelaces the whole time. Then when I got home Pascal peed on his leash and tried to run away.

This is what Pascal looks like, in case you were curious.

Only 5 more miles this week!!

Miles run this week: 20
Miles run in 2010: 20

PS. Can you spy the GRE word in this entry? This is my new way of studying for the test. I’ll soon figure out a way to slip math in too.